Ash’s ears rang and he fell. His cheek was on fire. He hadn’t even seen Hakim strike – the slap had been that blindingly fast. Ash’s fingers groped for the katar, and the steel settled into his hand.
He had just got to his feet when he collapsed again, this time on his front. His chin bashed against the hard, compacted ground and tears bubbled in his eyes. The back of his head throbbed. Hakim had punched him again before he was ready!
Ash gritted his teeth, staring at Hakim. “You scum,” he whispered. But this time as he stood, he kept his eyes on the older boy. Hakim stepped forward.
He’d cut him, just once. Just draw a little line of blood and teach Hakim a lesson. Ash thrust forward.
Hakim kicked his hand away, and the katar scuttled into the corner. Hakim twisted Ash’s arm tightly behind his back, locking his own forearm across Ash’s throat. He squeezed, shoving Ash’s Adam’s apple into his neck.
Stop. But he couldn’t speak; his windpipe was blocked. All he could do was flail with his legs. His eyes bulged and blood pounded in his ears. He couldn’t breathe.
Stop.
He reached behind him and with his free hand grabbed a fistful of Hakim’s hair. But Hakim jerked a few centimetres back, out of reach.
Stop.
Black clouds swelled in Ash’s eyes and his legs turned to jelly, twitching but powerless.
“Stop,” said Ujba.
Ash slumped to the floor. When he gasped, it felt like he was swallowing razor blades. Each breath was a shot of pure agony.
Rishi helped him up. Ash coughed and retched. His head swam and the ground swayed like a ship in a storm. Rishi led him to the side of the chamber and put him gently against the wall. Ash hung on to it, pushing his fingers into the cracks to hold himself upright.
“You didn’t help me,” he said with a gasping croak.
“It was not my fight.”
“He almost killed me.”
“It is the way of battle. The way you must learn, Ashoka. This is your life now.”
Ash stared at the gecko on the ceiling. It hadn’t moved for a couple of hours and neither had he. Lucky murmured as she slept in the next bed. While he’d spent the rest of the day down in the training hall, she’d been with Ujba’s healers, working the pestle and mortar making medicines. Pilgrims and locals who couldn’t afford Western doctors came to him. Some paid with a sack of rice; others offered Ujba a day’s work, or information. The old city was a tightly woven network of whispers and prying eyes, and Ujba sat at the heart of it. Nothing happened in Varanasi without him hearing of it.
By the time they’d finished, it was dark and Ash and Lucky were too exhausted to do anything but drop into their beds.
Now, hours later, she slept and Ash watched the gecko. The small lizard clung to the underside of the ceiling, eyes on the flies and insects humming in the room.
Ash’s fingers rested on the aastra, flat on his chest. What had he got himself into? Demons. Weapons made by gods. Ancient martial arts. His body was exhausted from the pummelling he’d got while training, but his mind wouldn’t rest. His life seemed a jigsaw, broken into pieces without a pattern by the deaths two nights ago.
Despair and doubts whispered to him. Who did he think he was? He was in way over his head. Could he trust Rishi? The old man wanted Ash to become a warrior. He must be mad. Ash winced as he flexed his biceps and blasts of pain ran along his arms.
Some warrior. Some hero.
Silently Ash got to his feet. He checked Lucky was dead asleep, then crept out of the room. He reached the edge of the roof and leaned over the balcony. The river was about ten metres from the building. He pulled off the aastra. One good swing and it would be lost for ever. Let it be someone else’s problem. He’d have no reason to fight Savage and he and Lucky could leave. He dangled the arrowhead from his fist.
“What are you doing?”
Parvati glided out of the darkness, moving with preternatural grace. Her dark green clothes shimmered, a light pair of silken trousers and a sleeveless top with serpents embroidered across it. Her hair was as smooth and as black as oil. She could be any girl, but her eyes remained that of a cobra, utterly inhuman.
“None of your business.” Ash still had the aastra in his hand, ready to throw. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping an eye on you. Making sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
“So you’re Rishi’s spy?”
She shrugged her slim shoulders. “That. And your bodyguard.”
“And I’ll be safe with you?” A rakshasa?
Parvati said nothing. She sat on the edge of the balcony, watching him. Round her neck was a silver locket that she turned idly with her fingers.
Ash knotted the aastra back round his neck, uncomfortable under Parvati’s intense gaze. “I suppose it’s magic. It’ll turn up in my breakfast if I try to chuck it, right?”
“Depends on what you have for breakfast.”
Parvati swung her legs back and forth. Ash watched as she drew her long fingers through her veil of black hair, turning a strand round and round her index finger. The nails were green. She was a rakshasa, a demon, but she acted just like a girl. She caught him looking at her. Ash blushed and rubbed the back of his neck.
“How long have you known Rishi?” he asked.
“On and off for about four and a half thousand years.”
Ash glanced back at her. That wasn’t possible, was it?
Parvati must have read the doubt. “I’m an immortal, Ash. I’ve been around a while.”
“And Rishi?”
“He’s human, like you. He’s destined to be reincarnated. Not that he remembers any of his past lives.”
“What about me?” The question blurted out before he’d even registered it. “You’ve met me before?”
Parvati laughed. Her voice rang like crystals chiming, and Ash felt the vibration of the sound travel deep through him.
“Yes, of course I have.” She raised her hand to stop his next question. “And you are the same each time. It’s as though your destiny is to repeat the same mistakes.”
“What mistakes? If you tell me what I do wrong, I could fix them now.”
“It would make no difference, Ash.”
“What about Rishi? He makes the same mistakes too?”
“Oh, yes. He always has too much faith in you.”
Ash stood back, wondering what she meant. How could he be responsible for previous lives? That didn’t seem fair. He was him, and him alone. Not these other ghosts of the past.
But the thought made his head swim: all that had happened before, he’d been part of it. Him, Parvati and Rishi.
“After I found the aastra, I had a dream – kind of like a vision,” said Ash. “I was on an endless battlefield. I was Rama, and he was fighting Ravana, the demon king, who wielded two huge swords. Everywhere he struck, men died.” He faced Parvati. “Was I Rama? Once?”
“You’ve been many, many people,” she replied. “Right here, right now, you are Ashoka Mistry. And that is all that matters.”
“So it’s my destiny to always fight? Lifetime after lifetime?” he said, really to himself.
“An eternal warrior. But you’re not the only one, Ashoka Mistry.” Parvati gave him a narrow-eyed look and her brow wrinkled with indecision. Then, abruptly, she spoke. “Some souls have been chosen, I don’t know why, to face evil. I’ve met them over the centuries. Some fail, some join the very forces they are meant to oppose, some are victorious. But all of them, all of them, change the world in profound ways.”
“I’m one of those?” said Ash. “So, no pressure then.” He gazed down at his bruised knuckles. “Why can’t you get one of these other ‘eternal warriors’ to deal with Savage?”
“We have you. We don’t need anyone else.”
“Is that a joke? I can’t fight.”
“A joke? How typically human to make a joke of serious business.”
“What? Demons have no sense of humour?”
She just stayed silent and gave him one of her creepy slow blinks. It was like she was deciding whether to let his comment pass or finish him with one quick bite. Now Ash knew what a mouse must feel like.
This was way too big a subject. Never-ending battles. Eternal warriors. Fate-of-the-world stuff. He couldn’t deal with all that responsibility. No one could. Ash wished he’d never asked about it now. He changed the subject.
“When did you first meet Rishi?” he asked.
“In Lanka.”
“Ravana’s home city.” That was straight out of Indian mythology, like someone saying they’d been at the battle of Troy. “You were there?”
“It was my home too.” Parvati’s eyes darkened. “It was filled with beautiful palaces made of glass. Perfumed gardens. Lakes the most perfect, clearest blue.” She rubbed her eyes, like she was trying to get rid of a painful vision. “Or at least, that’s how it looked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ravana was a great sorcerer, so great that reality itself bent around him. He could make anything seem real. He could raise mountains from valleys, turn deserts into orchards,” said Parvati. “But it wasn’t just the physical realm he controlled. He could delve into your mind, alter your memories, your emotions. You would never know that he was in there. He could make you hate the person you loved, make you kill them and you’d laugh as you did it.
“Rakshasas can adapt to such ever-evolving surroundings, but humans suffer in mind and body. They are changed in ways you cannot imagine, even in your worst nightmares. Lanka was a realm of insanity.”
Ash could imagine. “The Carnival of Flesh.”
Parvati gasped. “You’ve seen it?”
“In my dream. Vision. Whatever.”
“Then believe me when I tell you those he used in the Carnival were the lucky ones.”
Ash could see the pain on the girl’s face: Her brow furrowed and the demon eyes filled with tears. But she caught Ash looking at her and wiped her cheeks. Ash decided to change the subject again.
“What about Rishi?”
“Back then he was a general in Rama’s army.”
“And now you serve him?”
“After Ravana was killed, Rama declared a general amnesty for all rakshasas who’d fought against him. But some needed special watching, those who might start a rebellion against him.”
“And you were one of those?” Ash couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the three rakshasas who served Savage. “Why?”
“Ravana is my father.”
She might as well have hit him in the chest with a train. He stared, dumbfounded.
“I was the last of his children, born of a mortal mother, so I’m not considered rakshasa royalty,” Parvati continued. “But of all his offspring, even if I say so myself, I was his favourite.” There was a hint of pride in her voice.
“So, you and he hung out and did lots of father-daughter stuff. What, like playing catch and stories at bedtime?”
“Hardly. He taught me to kill. My venom is fatal to everything, you see. No mortal, no rakshasa, can survive it. I think he loved me most because he was afraid of me.” Parvati dug her nails into the wall. When she spoke, her voice filled with cold hate. “He was evil, Ashoka. The purest evil. My mother was a human princess. He kidnapped her and kept her prisoner for many years. He… altered her so by the time I was born she could barely be recognised as a human, let alone the princess she once was. He did that to all his prisoners, sooner or later. It amused him to hold some royals for ransom, then when the treasure was paid he’d return them, hideous beyond description, twisted in all ways. My mother’s single day of happiness was the day she killed herself. It was the only way to escape Ravana and his madness.”
Ash leaned his elbows on the battlements, watching the dark river. A trail of glowing candles floated upon the shimmering surface, a hundred glowing spirits. He looked obliquely at Parvati. She was too lost in her thoughts to notice him.
She had such rage inside her. It was both frightening, and, he had to admit, pretty cool. He didn’t have many female friends, and girls he fancied, like Gemma, were way out of his league – so far out he got tongue-tied as soon as they came anywhere near. Yet here he was with a demon princess. His heart beat faster as he watched strands of her hair float in the breeze. She touched the locket again, gently rubbing it. It was beautifully engraved, and Ash reckoned it must be old and pretty important.
A boat drifted in out of the darkness and Ash saw a couple of the kids on the river bank run towards it. Light streamed out from below as the door to the Lalgur opened, and out came Rishi.
“Where’s he going?” asked Ash. Why was he leaving? He couldn’t. He had to stay here with them. Ash’s voice trembled with anxiety. “He can’t go.”
Parvati took his hand. It was such a strange, unexpected gesture that he just blinked and stared at it.
“I’ll protect you,” she said. She flexed her long fingers and looked into his eyes. Ash could have been swallowed up in them, they were so deep and dark and hypnotic. She closed them slowly and shook her head. And then she left.
What was that all about?
“Ash and Parvati sitting in a tree,” said Lucky, her face peering through the stone lattice wall of their room. “K-IS-S-I-N-G.”
“Shut up, Lucks.”
ays passed and after a while a routine fell into place. Hakim’s friend Monk beat Ash up at breakfast. Hakim’s other friend Rajiv took a turn at lunchtime, and Hakim himself did the honours just before bedtime.
All Ujba did was make sure they didn’t actually kill him.
Every centimetre of Ash’s body was bruised and battered. But, after a while, he discovered something he’d never known about himself: He could take it. Still couldn’t dish it out, not yet; he hadn’t landed a single punch on any of them. But with his feet planted firmly and body tensed, he fell less and less, though the blows still hurt. And when he got knocked down, he always got back up.
Parvati lurked in the shadows and doorways, watching. She’d appear suddenly when he’d sit down for food and disappear within an eye-blink. But even when he couldn’t see her, Ash felt her eyes upon him. The only place Parvati wasn’t permitted was the training hall in the basement.
It was suffocating down there. The underground chamber had no real ventilation except for a few missing bricks high up in the walls. With thirty-plus boys sweating away, all day, every day, it was like living in a sauna. The first day he’d fought in his trousers and T-shirt, but by day two he’d put his embarrassment aside and stripped down to his underpants like everyone else.
Now Ash slumped in a corner of the chamber, gasping for breath after a solid thump in his guts, delivered with undisguised glee by Monk. John poured out a cup of water and Ash emptied it with a swallow. He held it out for refilling. “I think I’ve broken something,” he said as he felt along his ribs.
But John wasn’t listening; his eyes were on Hakim. Hakim moved with a dancer’s lightness and grace, every move executed with machine-like precision combined with devastating power. Ujba scolded him, beat him, but Hakim didn’t flinch under the hardest of blows. He seemed immune to fear. Dripping in sweat and covered in bleeding cuts, he just moved faster and fought harder.
The rumour among the boys was that Ujba was teaching Hakim Marma-adi, the 108 kill points. The Chinese called this art Dim Mak, the Death Touch. The body was covered with points of power and energy. It was said a master of the art could see these points as glowing spots of light upon the body, brightest at the most vulnerable locations. By attacking these, a warrior could bring about crippling pain and death with the lightest of blows. To master Marma-adi was to master the art of death.
Ash had asked John about it, but John had scoffed. That was a myth that belonged to the legends. He’d seen Ujba at work fighting, and the guru was a skilful bruiser, nothing more.
John refilled the cup. “He’s testing you.”
“Hakim?”
“No. Ujba. He never puts beginners against his best,” said John. “You’re very lucky.”
“Oh, yes. That’s what I tell myself every morning. How lucky I am.” Ash lightly touched the bruise on his chin, courtesy of Hakim. “Why does Hakim hate me?”
John shrugged. “You’re the new boy. He wants to establish the order of things, to put you in your place. Doesn’t help you being English.”
“I’m not English.” Ash pinched his dark skin. “I’m Indian.”
“No. You’re a coconut,” replied John. “Brown on the outside, white on the inside.”
Funny. Back in Britain he was too Indian, too Asian, to really be British, and out here he was too British to be Indian. So what was he?
Lost.
Ash groaned as he leaned up against the wall, trying to find some position that didn’t ache. And failing.
“Ash.” John nudged him. “You all right?”
“I’m just reflecting on the total sucky-ness of my life.” He wanted to escape, even if it was just for a minute. Escape back home. With his eyes shut tight, Ash tried to summon memories of London and his parents. They must know about Anita and Vik. They must be worried sick. What were they doing right now? Waiting by the phone? Wondering what had happened? If he could just call them, just for a minute. Tell them he and Lucky were alive at least.
But they never left the Lalgur. Each time Ash had wandered down to the front door there was someone standing there on guard, and Parvati in his shadow. Apparently Rishi had left strict instructions that they should be kept within the boundaries of the old palace. But there had been no word from the sadhu since he’d gone.
“Hey, English.” One of the boys, Monk, tossed a folded sheet of paper at him. “You’re famous.”
Ash opened it up and John leaned over to have a look. It was a poster with photos of Ash and Lucky. The text mentioned a car crash and two missing children. Lord Savage, out of the goodness of his heart, was urging everyone to look for them, and giving a hefty reward of ten thousand rupees to the person who found them.
“They’re all over the city,” said John.
Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress Page 10